


Glitter, Stars and Matchbox Cars

by shihadchick



Category: Ashlee Simpson - Fandom, Bandom, Gym Class Heroes
Genre: AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-12
Updated: 2011-01-12
Packaged: 2017-10-15 23:31:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/166018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shihadchick/pseuds/shihadchick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Early Childhood Educators AU, written for the 2011 <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/no_tags">No Tags</a> exchange. Ashlee loves her job at DKD Kids, and she's maybe starting to fall for her coworker a little bit, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Glitter, Stars and Matchbox Cars

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my beta, the_antichris! Who, among other things, pointed out that "i loled" was not necessarily a ringing endorsement of the alternate title.

Ashlee bites back a curse as she steps on a toy car left on the mat. It hurts like shit, and she nearly turns her ankle.

For someone who's been told more than once that she has a filthy mouth, she's been surprisingly good about not swearing in front of the little darlings who take up most of her daily life.

Of course, they packed the last giggling toddler off home to his doting mama and papa about twenty minutes ago, so after the split-second it takes to remind herself of that fact, she feels entirely justified in hissing "motherfucking oww!", and then hopping with incoherent rage.

The hopping is technically unnecessary, but it is traditional, under the circumstances. And who is Ashlee to go against tradition?

"Hey now," Travis says, looking up from the front of the classroom where he's straightening up the colouring station, "did you just get yourself crippled by a three year old? In absentia? Because that's hilarious."

"Gee, thanks for the sympathy," Ashlee says, rolling her eyes as she cautiously puts her weight back on her foot. It doesn't hurt too bad now, so there's that much to be said for the sole on her not-designer-but-doing-a-damn-good-job-of-looking-it chucks.

"That's what I'm here for," Travis drawls, grinning at her.

"What did I do without you?" Ashlee asks rhetorically, and lets him 'walk' her to her car as they finish clearing out and locking up.

* * *

Ashlee's only been at DKD Kids for a couple months, although it seems a lot longer. It's been something of a culture shock in a lot of ways -- after spending years helping out at her family's creche, it was always going to be a wrench to go somewhere else, and do things differently. Her own habits haven't bitten her in the ass too badly yet, which is pretty sweet and a huge relief, but she feels like she spends more time noticing the differences than she can count up what's the same.

Like, there's some obvious similarities: they've both got a whole mess of kids running around, giggling and talking and napping and crying and skinning their knees, and both centres have a waiting list a mile long for places. The staff are enthusiastic and well-trained, with up to the minute first aid certificates as well as all the relevant ECE degrees, but there's definitely something different about DKD, and Ashlee felt it the minute she walked in.

Of course, that might have had something to do with the fact that when she was asked in her interview if she had any tattoos, she'd paused for a second and then said "Yes", instead of resigning herself to lying and wearing long-sleeved shirts even in the middle of summer, or of losing the chance for the job right then and there.

And it turned out her instincts were spot-on with that one, because the guy interviewing her had given her a huge grin and just said "awesome; we have a policy of allowing visible ink, so don't worry about covering up, hey?"

As a way of telling someone they'd got the position, it was roundabout, but it got the job done.

* * *

Ashlee was rostered on Wednesday to Sunday, which was actually a sweeter deal than it sounded. There was something stupidly decadent about getting to sleep in on Mondays and run any of her errands while everyone else was at work. And DKD's was only open until 6pm on the weekends anyway, so that was usually more than enough time to get home and get dressed again if she wanted to go out; just in time to get stuck in traffic.

LA was kind of a shithole that way, but at least it was one she was used to by now.

The other part she liked about working Wednesday to Sunday was it meant she was working with Travis.

Travie had been almost more unexpected than anything else.

She walked in to their room on her first day, ready to get familiar with the set up and their gear, ready to make a splash and put her own mark onto the room. And then the guy who'd been bent over a toybox at the back of the room straightened up in response to Pete's cheery hello, turning to come over and shake hands, and... holy shit.

This guy was, like, the picture perfect representation of visible ink in the classroom. No wonder they had a policy. Coupled with the piercings and the gauges in his ears, he was just about a walking advertisement for the hipster-alternative crowd that tended to live in the area. His hands were softer than she might've expected, and she was just marshalling a pleasant and not at all ridiculously teenage piece of small talk when he'd looked down at their hands and cracked up. He'd yanked his hand back before she could even blink, and he was already saying "whoops, trial by fire," and handing her a towel before the fact that he'd gotten paint all over her had even registered.

"Surely the mess is meant to wait till the kids get here?" she'd said dryly, and felt a flicker of satisfaction when he hadn't blinked, had met her sally with a "who'd want to work here if they weren't a big kid anyway, right?"

Ashlee had figured they were probably going to get on just fine.

She just hadn't figured on how finding Travie ridiculously smoking hot wasn't apparently something that was going to go away with exposure. If life was fair, he'd be like- well, not like the chicken pox, that was kind of insulting, but she should have been immune by now was the point she was trying to make to herself, and the fact she couldn't work up a good enough reason why was just another reason she was happier working with kids under five and not high school English. God forbid.

* * *  
Travie is the king and all-time-champion of silly face judo. Every kid that starts out in their classroom takes him on, as soon as they've settled in and are brave enough, as soon as they want to. It's their speciality, the thing that their kids get and none of the other rooms do, and there's even a crown. It's white and covered in glitter - totally covered, it fucking sheds glitter by the truckload every time they pull it out, it has to be anti-physics or something, but Ashlee's learned by now to just smile and nod at that, and be damn glad she doesn't have to do the vacuuming. It probably started out life as one of those plastic tiaras they sell at Claire's, but then it had a head-on collision with one of Travie's Very Special Arts and Crafts sessions, and now it's an epic creation from the deepest myths of time.

Travis likes to wear it over the top of his hoodie, because he is just that cool.

The kids all think it's awesome, although Ashlee privately suspects that half of them just 'challenge' Travie for the sake of seeing what ridiculous faces he's thought up for them next. Sometimes there are even sound effects.

There's a specific formula which has to be enacted before every challenge as well, and because they've got a room full of three and four year olds who retain information only if they're very, very lucky (or very unlucky; there's a reason that Ashlee watches her mouth around the kids), the formula is open to a lot of interpretation.

It mostly involves a lot of singing and dancing, and holding hands in a circle around Travie - who has to sit cross-legged on the ground so that he's at eye-level with the kids - and it's basically one of the most fun things Ashlee's ever had to do at work. She's definitely down with it.

She also loves the way that all the kids have pretty much adopted him as their role model, which means they have at least one day a week where they have to spend half the afternoon scrubbing, because "paint your arms like Mr Travis and Miss Ashlee" usually turns inevitably into "paint every available surface on your body and also the room". Nontoxic paints are awesome. Ashlee's only seventy percent worried that her neck is going to be bright magenta for a week. They take pictures of the 'tattoos' that the kids design and draw on each other and make a poster-board which all the parents coo over. Ashlee thinks privately about how her dad would find that less adorable, and is once again convinced that she's made the right decision.

* * *

Ashlee's sitting down, for once; just finishing up some paperwork when she realises that Travie is standing by her desk, glasses slipping down his nose only a little less obviously than his pants are sliding his hips. She really should have stopped noticing that by now.

A baseball cap is fighting a losing battle with his hair, and she hides the grin that wants to steal over her lips at that.

"Hey, Travie," she says, glancing at her watch to check the time. "Don't you have band practice tonight?"

He and a bunch of his friends get together every week and play music; some of it is stupid covers that they record and throw up on YouTube, sometimes stuff they've written themselves. It's actually pretty good; Ashlee's spent more than one of her 'weekends' hanging out with them, watching Travie and Gabe wrestle like ten year olds, and having water fights with Disashi and Andrew on the front lawn and humming along while Travis sings and gropes Bill and generally acts out all of the not-entirely PG-rated tomfoolery that he doesn't indulge in at work.

Ashlee's still writing songs herself, but she hasn't shared any yet. It's not that she doesn't trust them; it's more like she's not sure she's found the right lyrics yet. They'll come with time.

Pete turns up sometimes and grins like a proud father, which is a little alarming because Ashlee's pretty sure he's maybe only a year or two older than them anyway. He keeps threatening to enter them in some battle of the bands down Santa Monica if they don't behave, although after a couple months working for him, Ashlee is still not entirely sure what Pete's definition of "behave" encompasses.

"Yeah, the guys wanted to know if you were coming. Thought we could carpool?"

"You're just using me for the carpool lane on the 5, aren't you?" she asks with a grin. She's okay with that.

"A gentleman never tells," he says solemnly, but his eyes are laughing.

"I thought it was a lady never kisses and tells?" Ashlee replies, without really thinking.

"Lady's gotta kiss first," Travis says, and just like that, the atmosphere changes. If LA had anything like actual weather, Ashlee'd almost look outside to see if there was a storm rolling in; the kind of big ol' crashing thunderheads that would wipe the sky clean for hours afterwards, the kind she loved to sit out on the porch and watch when she was a kid.

"That could... end badly," she says carefully, at last.

"Only one way to know," Travis says, just as softly.

Ashlee thinks about how she's changed, how she's made her own choices and taken life in both hands, the way she wants it, and decides that it's worked out well so far, so maybe she should just apply that policy to everything anyway.

She stands up and moves over to Travis, getting right into his space, and then goes up on tip-toes to press her mouth to his. Every look she's getting before she gives in and closes her eyes tells her that this is the right move, that they're both on board and into it. It's a surprisingly sweet kiss even so; she can feel the uneven pressure of his piercings where they nudge her skin, and his arms are firm and well-muscled as they wrap around her waist, and it's- it's good.

Ashlee definitely wants to do this again.

"You better not be making any faces at me right now, Travie," she says, blinking her eyes open. "Because otherwise I'm going to shove that crown somewhere the sun doesn't shine."

"Appropriate language," Travis says, mock-chastising, and presses a finger to her lips.

Ashlee thinks about the kinds of behaviours they deal with every single day, and makes the only intelligent decision there is.

She bites his finger.

"Let's go get dinner, huh?" she says brightly, and Travis, not to be outdone, just shakes his head at her and says "I think _someone_ needs a nap..."


End file.
